Written by Josephine (Empress) Gates (Fall Intern)
“Remember, your mental dimensions are equivalent to your Dream Garden”
As an evolving Healer enrolled in undergrad, studying psychology, I have been exposed to the complexities of stabilizing, maintaining, and developing my mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health levels. It has been a journey filled with life-changing miracles. Due to the uncontrollable amount of pain, turmoil, and trauma I’ve been exposed to throughout my upbringing, as an Afrikan American Wombman, I didn’t receive the necessary tools, institutions, or safe spaces to assist me in the navigation. Emerging into adulthood, I had to swallow the pill of taking the initiative to nourish my garden and create my paradise.
When observing the purpose of a garden, it is revealed the necessities of nourishment, rejuvenation, and beauty are cultivated with the helping hands of The Most High and the Farmer chosen to toil the land to sew seeds and harvest crops. Essentially, after extensive toiling and diligent labor, the seeds sown effectively produce clean air, absorb carbon dioxide, and release clean oxygen and nutrients while growing fresh produce. Furthermore, the key to a flourishing garden is healthy soil. Soil is our life support system. Soils anchor roots, hold water and store nutrients. Soils are home to earthworms, termites, and a myriad of microorganisms that fix nitrogen and decompose organic matter. It also buffers against pollutants, thus protecting groundwater quality. We build on the soil as well as with it.
Emerging into adulthood, I had to swallow the pill of taking the initiative to nourish my garden and create my paradise.
Now, I know you’re wondering why I’m going into full detail about the components of a garden. But I promise, it’ll make sense, stay with me. As we transition from adolescence to adulthood, we recognize that we unfortunately, have to diligently work to unlearn, reprogram, and rebuild our emotional, mental, and spiritual bodies due to the domestication and programming we experienced during our upbringing influenced by society and our cultural inheritance. The way we love ourselves, speak to ourselves, protect ourselves, provide for ourselves, advocate for ourselves, and empower ourselves is geared toward the programming of our lineage and society as a whole. Whose to say, this programming is conducive to health, wealth, and abundance on all dimensions? Who is to say, this way of life is the life I want my children to live and evolve in? Who is to say, I wholeheartedly agree with the belief systems that develop and shape our core values, educational systems, and health care facilities? Exactly my point, I have a say. I have a say in how my garden is built. I have a say on the seeds that are to be sowed and harvested.
One of the hardest pills to swallow, approaching the threshold of adulthood, is recognizing that you have to remove all of the layers your lineage placed on generations to hide the pain, trauma, and turmoil. This requires you to surrender to the unknown when digesting the devastating heartbreak, ignorance, and powerlessness your lineage experienced from colonizers, oppressors, abusers, and exploiters that you now carry. This requires a supernatural amount of forgiveness, emotional maturity, and humility. This requires a soulful amount of discipline and commitment to saving yourself and future generations who are to experience the exotic fruits from your Sacred Garden. But first, you have to address Thyself. Adress your fingers placing blame. Address your feet running away from accountability and self-control. Address the limiting mindsets that encourage self-sabotage, doubt, fear, and anxiety. Address the negative self-talk destroying your confidence and ability to be transparent and vulnerable. Address the fact that you have to be the one to remove the weeds in your life in order to fertilize the soil in your garden. Remember, your mental dimensions are equivalent to your Dream Garden.
Adress your fingers placing blame. Address your feet running away from accountability and self-control.
As adults, we make the necessary sacrifices and investments to ensure we have the beneficial tools, resources, support systems, and spiritual mentors to assist with the construction of our Sacred Gardens. We take the initiative to nourish our gardens and create our paradise.
What if I told you now is your chance to create your paradise? The open land is yours